Adam Miller was contacted by numerous big-name programs after entering the transfer portal, but he only took one visit. That was to Gonzaga in April, about five months after his former team, Arizona State, fell to the Bulldogs at the McCarthey Athletic Center.

His initial trip to Spokane didn’t go well. He had a rare tough shooting night and he committed a turnover that led to Khalif Battle’s crowd-pleasing dunk during GU’s 88-80 win.

“It was loud,” Miller recalled. “When Khalif dunked that ball, I was like, ‘Hell no.’ And they fouled me, too. Somebody hit my arm when I was throwing the ball but the opposing team in the Kennel, you’re not getting that call.”

The 6-foot-3, 190-pound Miller’s call on joining the Zags was much smoother. He spent his freshman year as a starter on an Illinois team that joined Gonzaga, Baylor and Michigan as No. 1 seeds before bowing out in the 2021 NCAA Tournament second round.

He hasn’t played in the NCAA Tournament since. A torn ACL put him on the sidelines at LSU when the Tigers lost in the opening round. He returned to start the following season but LSU stumbled to a 2-16 SEC record. He endured two losing seasons at Arizona State, one in the Pac-12 and last year in the Big 12.

Miller’s wish list included finding a winning program known for player development that needed backcourt reinforcements. That synced up with Gonzaga, which lost Ryan Nembhard, Nolan Hickman and Battle from last year’s squad.

“I was kind of sold before I got there,” Miller said in a phone interview between training sessions in Miami. “They have a really good coaching staff. They’re all in on what they want to do and they have a great connection. There was opportunity and there was need. That’s why we came towards each other.

“I just felt their success rate with transfers coming in and their winning culture is really high.”

Miller had a connection to GU’s coaching staff through assistant Stephen Gentry, who was on the Fighting Illini’s staff when Miller was a freshman.

“He was fired up,” said Miller, a Peoria, Illinois, native. “He understood my work ethic. He’s a junkie for the game. He’s like a computer, he lives, breathes basketball. Just in tune with his craft.”

Miller also checked in with former Zag Chet Holmgren. The two were teammates on Team USA’s gold-medal U19 team at the 2021 World Cup in Latvia. “He was like, yeah, go there,” Miller said.

The 23-year-old Miller had a solid season with the Sun Devils last season, hitting a career best 42.9% on 3-pointers. That percentage was in the mid-40s before he suffered a late-season injury. While there were drops in some statistical categories compared to his previous years, Miller labeled it his “most mature season.”

“I didn’t have the dazzling 15-16 points a game, but I was playing the right way,” he said. “My team needed that, needed someone to do that. My (usage) volume wasn’t as high as it should have been, but I didn’t try to force too many things.”

Video sessions during Miller’s visit illustrated his fit in Gonzaga’s system.

“Being a true combo (guard), putting me in ball screens, getting out in transition and putting the defense on their heels and being that three-levels scorer I’ve been my whole life,” Miller said. “They want me to be a dog, set the tone for the team. Do what I do, put the ball in the hole. I feel like I’ll be the best version of myself. I’ve matured.

“They kind of told me it’s kind of a mix of Khalif and Nolan in a way. I can shoot it, I’m athletic and can get out and run. Being able to control the pace of the game with my veteran mind and know when to be aggressive and when to be patient.”

Miller hadn’t topped 34% behind the 3-point line prior to last season. The marked improvement was the result of countless repetitions and freeing his mind.

“I didn’t have to overthink it, just trust my work,” he said. “When you shoot it like that, you’re going to give it a chance. I get a lot of shots up. I doubled my number of shots last summer than any other summer in my life, but my main thing was getting my percentages up, not my (scoring) averages.”

Miller believes he brings much more to GU than just 3-pointers. His off-season work is focused on expanding his game at both ends of the floor. He has 117 games of college experience, including 115 as a starter, and a 10.3 career scoring average in nearly 30 minutes per game.

Miller will be Gonzaga’s oldest player by roughly four months over Steele Venters and its most experienced by two games and seven starts over Graham Ike.

“I want to go from a good defender to an elite defender,” he said. “That’s an effort thing and a team thing. I’m an OK playmaker, but I should be able to showcase it more. Improve my turnover percentage: I think it’ll be better with this offense and guys that move the ball and having a higher usage rate.

“I need to get to the free-throw line more. And finishing, I don’t think it’s a weakness, I just need to get to the rim more. I think I settle a little too much.”

Miller returned to Peoria this weekend to hold his 8th annual free kids camp. The camp name combines his two nicknames – ‘Ace’ from his childhood and ‘Wolf’ from his AAU days. “That’s my handle on all my social media,” he said.

Miller expects to arrive in Spokane in early June. He’s already looking forward to the Gonzaga-Arizona State rematch this season in Tempe.

“I actually told one of the (ASU) assistants that I’m coming in talking (smack),” he said. “Every time I make a bucket I’m looking at the bench, but it’s going to be real good competition.”

Miller sounds rejuvenated for his fifth season on the court – an extra year thanks to COVID – at his fourth different stop. He brought up another memory from his visit to Gonzaga campus last month.

“I feel like anything is possible,” he said. “I want to come here and win a national championship, go to the Final Four. As soon as I walked into the Kennel I saw the pictures of all the (former Zags) on the walls, and it’s a lot of good guys. I was at Illinois, LSU and ASU so it was guys like Ayo Dosunmu, Dee Brown, Shaq (O’Neal), and James Harden.

“Here at Gonzaga, the only thing to set me apart from those guys is winning a national championship.”